


Revisions

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-11-18
Updated: 1996-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully volunteer to baby-sit a federal witness who sees more than she wishes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revisions

_Alexandria, Virginia  
11:04 pm_

Sealy Ramirez sat quietly, running a finger gently over her latest case. She cleared her throat to activate her voice-controlled recorder, and started dictating her notes.

"I don't think that his alibi is going to stand up, Ken," she dictated calmly. "Forton is a convicted felon--he's got a rap sheet a mile long. Once we get him on the stand, I'm sure you can tear him apart pretty easily."

She ran a sensitive hand over the deposition before her, musing silently that this might be the biggest case she and Ken had tackled yet. The Mob had been taking advantage of the legal system for decades--and now, it was time for some payback.

She'd almost finished dictating her notes when she heard the tell-tale sound of her front door being opened. She sat up straighter, moving a quiet hand to her desk drawer and drawing out her knife.

You could never be too careful when you worked for the DA, she'd told herself months ago, as she'd walked into that fine little weapons shop and bought the three-inch blade. It had been a late effort on her part--a fall-out from an attack on her by a disgruntled drug dealer. Not that her assailant had come out of the fray in one piece, even without a knife to help the young legal aide. Ken had taken to calling her "the Killer Seal" after that one.

Still, the knife made her feel safer, more secure in her ability to protect herself. And she realized that she'd need that protection now, as her acute hearing followed the intruder toward her den. She switched off her computer monitor, plunging the room into darkness, her knife at the ready as she moved to crouch by the door.

She never got a chance to use the weapon.

Whether her assailant had heard her coming, or whether he was just quicker than she was, Sealy couldn't have said--but he was on her in an instant, frighteningly thin arms snaking themselves around her in the dark.

"You're not going to be able to help your little boyfriend anymore, Miss Ramirez," a cold, vicious-sounding voice grated, close to her ear. "And I'm afraid, since you have most of the evidence right here, he's not going to be able to handle the case without you."

Something in the voice set her off, and Sealy turned in the man's arms, clawing for his eyes.

"Jesus!" The cry held all the pain and surprise that Sealy hoped it would, and she dashed through his now-nerveless arms, heading for the living room, and for the door beyond.

But swift hands caught her up just as she reached the couch. She screamed, hoping desperately that someone-- _anyone_ \--would hear her. A rough hand covered her mouth, feeling like a sandpaper vise.

"What's the matter, Dave?" her captor called out meanly. "Can't you even handle one weak little woman?"

"Just wait until she gets her fingers in _your_ eyes, you asshole," his counterpart returned, his voice approaching her.

Sealy squirmed. She had to get away from them--she had to do _something!_

The pressure in the room changed suddenly, and she could feel the man's grip loosen slightly. She tried to take advantage of his lapse, but found, to her horror, that she couldn't move.

"What the hell is that?" The man who held her asked, his voice shaking slightly. There was a heat building in the room, threatening to take Sealy's breath away.

"Oh, Jesus!" Her first attacker had a terror in his voice, causing it to crack, jumping into that high octave of fear that all voices had. "Oh, Jesus!"

Sealy felt the man's hands fall away from her completely, heard the crushing sound of a gunshot fired far too close to her ear. And still she couldn't move. She tried to scream, to give herself _any_ sense that she was still alive, still moving. But it was no use. The heat began to build again, and with it came a strange smell, so alien to her that she tried desperately to move her hands to cover her nose. Someone was coming toward her, someone strange...

Something _alien._

One last try finally loosed her vocal chords, and in a whispered shout she cried out to the approaching... thing.

"Who--who are you?"

She sensed it standing directly in front of her, felt a cold, alien touch.

Sealy felt a crushing pressure at the base of her skull, and slid angrily into oblivion...

* * *

_Next Day  
8:45 am_

"Hey Sealy!" Ken Fairchild sighed angrily as he slid his key into Sealy Ramirez's lock. "Sealy, damnit! We're going to be late for the deposition!"

Ken walked into the living room, intent on heading for her bedroom, dragging her out of bed, when he stopped, frozen by the sight of a pair of over-sized shoes sticking out from behind the couch.

"Sealy?" he called cautiously, though a woman of Sealy's size could never have worn those shoes. "Honey?"

He gasped almost angrily as he came around the side of the couch, gazing down at the body before him. It was burned--badly burned--absolutely incinerated.

And yet, there was no sign of scorch marks on the floor around it. No sign that it hadn't just been dumped there, already burned. Ken's palms began to sweat...

If he touched that body, he knew it would fall to ashes in his hands. There was no way it could have been brought here in one piece.

"Sealy!" Ken stood from his examination of the body, heading for his assistant's den, fearing the worst--

And came upon another body, as badly scorched as the other, and just as obviously _not_ Sealy Ramirez. He ran for the den now, bursting through the door, nearly lancing himself in the foot with her fallen knife. He picked it up, baffled, gazing around the empty room, until his gaze fell on the desk...

...and the recorder that sat there, spurred to brief life by his calls...

* * *

 _Washington, D.C._  
Two weeks later  
8:43 am

Scully looked up as her partner walked in the door, a thick file folder in his hand. He also had that curious look in his eyes--a look that told Scully she was in for another strange day.

"You're later than usual," she remarked, leaving an opening for him to begin discussing his latest hunt.

"I had a meeting with a few guys in Organized Crime."

"About?"

Mulder, still that look in his eyes, handed her the file, taking his place behind his own desk, and fiddling absently with a cassette tape. "Remember the murder of that federal judge last week?"

Scully nodded. "A federal judge and one of Alexandria's assistant DAs, as I recall."

"Right... They've got a witness." He smiled at Scully's upturned eyebrow. "Yeah, keeping it _very_ quiet."

Scully opened the file before her. Very quiet, indeed. That they'd even found a witness was amazing. That they'd managed to keep that fact a secret--even from the federal investigators--was unbelievable.

"What does this case have to do with you?"

"The witness is an amazing young woman," Mulder said, a quirky half-grin for the predictable Scully-look he recieved. "Sealy Ramirez," he announced, as Scully turned back to the photo which topped the file. She _was_ a beautiful woman; long, wavy brown hair, delicate latino features... Scully noticed that the girl's eyes were strange, slightly unfocused.

"She was the assistant DA's top legal aide," Mulder continued. "Graduated third in her class at UCLA law three years ago. Got recruited by Alexandria right out of school. She's been heading up the investigation of John Martin."

"The mob drug boss?"

Mulder nodded.

"Impressive."

"Especially for a woman who's been completely blind most of her life."

Scully looked up. " _She's_ the witness?"

"Yeah. She worked with a police artist to come up with a picture of Mickey Garbaldi--Martin's right hand man." He leaned back slightly in his chair, watching Scully think. "Gardibaldi's gone to ground. Alexandria PD's turning over all the usual rocks trying to find him."

Scully looked at him strangely. "I thought you said that Ramirez was blind?"

Mulder gave her that grin of his, and she knew this was going to be stranger than she'd expected. "She was."

His partner kept silent, letting him have his moment of theatricality. After another grin, he continued. "Sealy was attacked in her apartment ten days before the shooting. The assistant DA, Fairchild, came by her house to pick her up for an interview session they had scheduled with a potential witness in the Martin case." Mulder stood, and handed Scully another file. "What he found was two corpses--burnt to a crisp... but no Ramirez."

Scully shook her head. His tendency toward the dramatic was always a little on the vague side for her. "So somebody kidnapped her and set fire to her house? Who were the bodies?"

Mulder shrugged. "Two of Martin's men. But look at the photo, Scully," he urged, pointing to the top of the file. "There's no proof that those men burned in that apartment at all. No scorch marks on the floor, no signs of smoke damage... They just burnt to the ground while standing there."

"So the bodies were dumped at the scene," Scully posited reasonably. "But why? And what happened with the kidnapping? I'm assuming it failed, right? I mean, she _was_ there to witness Fairchild's murder."

Mulder dropped the subject of the bodies--for now. "The kidnapping succeeded, actually. Sealy Ramirez was missing for three days. The cops searched every suspected mob site for her. No clues, no evidence." He turned, settling into his chair again. "Exactly three days after she disappeared, Sealy Ramirez turned up unconscious on the floor of her office at the City and County building."

Scully was, reluctantly, starting to get hooked. "What happened?"

Mulder shrugged. "She didn't remember. She was taken to the emergency room, and treated for broken ribs, lacerations, a minor concussion..."

"They tortured her?"

He shook his head. "They gave her a miracle."

Scully just stared at him for a long moment. " _That's_ a miracle?"

"Maybe not," Mulder replied, rising and grabbing his coat as he gestured toward the door. "But the fact that she can see again _is._ " He ignored his partner's astonished look. "Come on. I volunteered us to do some babysitting for the witness." He smiled at Scully's irritation. "Hope you've got an overnight bag packed," he said brightly.

"Don't I always?" Scully grumbled, as she headed out the door.

* * *

_En Route to the Virginia coast  
12:45 pm_

"Mulder, this isn't possible," Scully finally announced.

They'd made arrangements to take over for two of the Virginia agents that were watching Ramirez. With the very real threat of another mob attack looming, and Garibaldi still on the loose, the FBI had decided that she needed to be kept as far away from the turmoil of the case as possible. They needed her. John Martin was responsible for more than just the death of an assistant DA--the federal judge who'd been shot along with Fairchild was the fourth murder of a federal law enforcement offical that could be linked to the crime boss. And Garibaldi might just be convinced to turn against the old man--if they could find him.

"Sealy Ramirez has severe damage to her optic nerves," Scully continued. "There is no surgery, no accident, _nothing_ that could give her _any_ sight back."

"Take a look at the scarring around her eyes again," Mulder said quietly, his eyes on the road.

Scully turned back to the evidence photo in question. Around Ramirez's eye sockets were precise, semi-circular scars, already half-healed by the time she'd reached the emergency room two weeks ago. "They do look like surgical incisions," Scully allowed.

"The doctor who examined her said that they may have been laser surgery."

His partner thought about that for a minute, before turning to him. "Are you suggesting that someone performed surgery on her?" she asked incredulously. "Someone kidnapped her, corrected the defects in her optic nerves, and then just returned her?"

Mulder gave her a Cheshire grin. "Something like that."

"'Something like that'," she mused angrily. "Mulder? Are you going to bother to tell me your thoughts on this case, or do you expect me to simply walk in blindly?"

"Forgive the pun," Mulder added with a smile. He sobered as Scully's face darkened. "I _think_... I think maybe the men John Martin sent to kidnap her were interrupted."

"By...?" she asked tiredly.

"By something else," he replied simply.

Scully chewed on that one angrily for a moment before Mulder sighed, putting the tape he'd been fiddling with into the cassette player, and turning up the volume.

Sealy Ramirez's voice was a rich, clear alto, surprisingly untainted by the recording.

"I don't think that his alibi is going to stand up, Ken... Forton is a convicted felon--he's got a rap sheet a mile long. Once we get him on the stand, I'm sure you can tear him apart pretty easily..."

Scully sat up straighter as a short scream issued from the speakers.

A rough, male voice came across now, and Scully could hear murder in its tone. "You're not going to be able to help your little boyfriend anymore, Miss Ramirez..."

"Where did the tape come from?" Scully asked, shooting a puzzled look at her partner.

"Ramirez used a voice-controlled tape player to record her notes," Mulder replied easily. "It was still on when Martin's men entered the apartment."

"Men?"

"Just listen..."

"...you even handle one weak little woman?"

This voice was obviously not the same as the last, and it sounded as though the man speaking was in another room entirely from the recorder.

"Just wait until she gets her fingers in _your_ eyes, asshole..."

The background static rose suddenly, and Scully had a hard time hearing the next words.

"...the hell is that?"

More static...

"Jesus!" This from the first man's voice--high, full of terror. "Oh JESUS!"

The static flared, but Scully thought that, through the white noise, she could hear a gunshot fired... Then, Sealy's voice, barely discernible above the mounting noise, "Who--who are you?"

There was no answer, only a flash of static, followed by an eerie silence.

Mulder reached over and ejected the cassette, turning to his partner questioningly.

"I don't know what you expect me to say, Mulder," Scully replied after a moment. "What do _you_ think it was? A rival gang, hoping to use her against Martin?"

He didn't answer, and Scully was left to muddle through this strange new evidence as they finally approached the safe house in the woods.

 

It was a simple old farmhouse, a barn sitting off to one side of the lot, but the signs of federal protection were there--if you knew what you were looking for.

A handsome young man walked in from the road, a walkman in his hand, headphones on his head. But if you looked closely, you could see that he was talking quietly to himself--or, rather, to the agents inside the house, letting them know who had just come down the lane toward them.

The porch door opened, and a tall, well-muscled young black man walked down the steps to greet them. "Hey Mulder!"

Mulder decided right then and there that he had to change clothes. David Brophy was clad in a relaxed pair of jeans, a roomy sweater enveloping his upper body. It looked a hell of a lot more comfortable than the business suit Mulder was sporting.

"Hey, Brophy," he returned, as they headed back toward the house. "What are you doing on an assignment like this?"

Brophy shrugged. "Just... something different," he said finally.

Scully wondered, stifling a laugh as she saw the look in the young agent's eyes, if that something different might not be Sealy Ramirez. Even in the evidence photos she'd seen, the young witness was gorgeous.

"I'll, uh... I'll introduce you to Ramirez," Brophy continued after a moment. "It's going to be just the four of us in a little while. The bureau's actually thinking of moving this operation if Hurricane Barbara gets much closer."

Scully paused at that. She hated sea storms. While she'd never been in a hurricane before, the tropical depressions that had slammed rain into her family's houses when she was a child were more than enough for her.

"I hadn't heard that it was heading for us," she said conversationally. Still, Mulder passed a very strange look her way.

Damn guy knew her a little too well for her comfort sometimes.

"Yeah," Brophy returned, unmoved. "It's switched path kind of radically in the last few days." He shrugged. "Nothing to worry about. Even if it does hit the coast, we're far enough away that we'll probably just get dumped on a little."

During their discussion, they'd wound their way through to the back of the house, and Brophy led them into a quiet little room, where a small, dark-haired woman was sitting at a table.

"Sealy?" the young agent called gently.

Scully again hid a smile. Yep, David was certainly smitten. It wasn't surprising, she decided, as Sealy Ramirez turned. She was an exquisite young woman.

"This is Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," Brophy said quietly, pausing at each name to let Sealy shake their hands. She smiled a bit uncertainly at Mulder, but seemed to warm instantly to his diminutive partner.

"So you guys are my new babysitters?" Sealy joked with a smile. "Did Mom tell you I get to stay up and watch Leno at night?"

Mulder smiled at that. She was holding up a lot better than a woman who'd been through what _she'd_ been through in the last month should have been.

"Agent Scully's a doctor," he began slowly. "We were wondering if she could take a look at you?"

Sealy grinned wryly. "Ah yes. The 'miracle'." She sat down, gesturing for Scully to join her, a strange look in her eyes that made Scully edgy. "Go ahead. Poke and prod."

Scully knelt down beside her, reaching out for Mulder to pass her the medical kit she'd brought.

"You were five when you had the virus?" she asked, as she poked and prodded the area around Sealy's eyes. The scars were nearly gone now--an amazing bit of healing if they had, indeed, only been inflicted in the past two weeks.

"Yeah," Sealy affirmed, trying to stare straight ahead as Scully examined her. "I, um... All the sight was gone by the time I was six... They said that the virus damaged the optic nerves to the point where they just wouldn't work anymore..." She shrugged. "Guess they were wrong."

"What do you remember of those three days you were missing?" Mulder asked, watching as Scully shone a light in Sealy's eyes.

Again, the pretty young woman shrugged. "Nothing, really. I remember working on the deposition notes in my den at home... I heard a noise out in the living room, and then..." She trailed off uncertainly, locking eyes with the female agent before her, causing uncomfortable shivers to run up Scully's spine.

Shutting off her penlight, Scully glanced up at Mulder significantly, and stood, smilling at Sealy. "I'd like to sit down and talk with you some more later, Sealy," she said quietly. "For now, I think _I'd_ like to get out of this suit and into something a little more appropriate for the setting."

Sealy smiled back, "No problem." Her next words, innocent as they were, disturbed Scully on a level that barely registered consciously. " _You_ can talk to me about this any time." Her eyes darkened suddenly as a thought crossed her mind. "If you guys are here to watchdog me for this trial, why are you so interested in what happened to my eyes?"

It was Mulder's turn to shrug. "We'll talk a little more later, okay?"

"Okay." Sealy looked at Mulder closely for the first time, and shuddered.

"Are you okay, Sealy?" Scully asked, laying a quiet hand on her arm.

Sealy nodded, trying to clear a vision of blood and pain from her mind, trying to see only what was there _now._ "Yeah," she whispered, straightening suddenly, and flashing a tense smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Come on, guys," Brophy said, his eyes a little dark from Sealy's reaction, as he lead Mulder and Scully from the room. "I'll show you where you can put your stuff."

* * *

"She's pretty," Mulder said slyly, a grin for Brophy's immediate discomfort.

"Yeah."

"Have you got the examination records from her emergency room visit?" Scully wanted to focus on the case--she didn't want to know why Sealy Ramirez disturbed her so badly.

"Sure, Agent Scully," Brophy replied, glad to have a change in subject. "Let's just stow your stuff, and we can talk about it."

 

"So what do you think, Scully?" Mulder asked, after Brophy had left them to make his rounds of the area.

"David's looking too hard for a wife," Scully quipped idly.

"Could any surgery you know of have returned Ramirez's sight?" Mulder persisted.

Scully sighed. "No. Even the most advanced experimental surgeries I've seen couldn't do that... I'm not sure I believe she's even _really_ seeing... in the normal sense."

"What do you mean?"

"Her eyes are just not responding the way they should," Scully started carefully. "Her pupils are consistently uneven--not at all normally responsive to light... The medical exam notes from the hospital are a little too sketchy for my tastes. I think they were so amazed by the fact that she could see _anything,_ that they didn't look closely enough."

"So what are you saying?" Mulder asked incredulously. "She's got hysterical _sight?_ I don't think even the soap operas use _that_ one."

"No..." Scully replied slowly. "But she might have partial sight--very partial--and her mind is simply dealing with that sight the best way it knows how. By filling in the blanks."

Mulder snorted at that. "She filled in the blanks pretty damned well," he said finally. "You can't just talk your way through a police artist's sketch, Scully. What she came up with was immediately identifiable as Garibaldi."

"But she would have _known_ what Garibaldi looked like _before_ she regained her sight, Mulder," Scully said reasonably. "She's probably heard descriptions of him a thousand times."

Mulder sighed. Scully was reaching here--really reaching. God, her "scientific" explanation sounded less plausible than the strangest of his extreme possibilities!

"So she just... dimly saw the sketch, and talked her way to a positive identification?"

Scully looked up at him warily, discomfited by the way he was talking out her theory. Okay, so it _was_ a little far-fetched, but...

"What do _you_ think happened?" she asked, defensive.

"I think..." Mulder took a deep breath and plunged in. "There are a dozen cases in the X-Files that deal with people who have had miraculous cures after abduction experiences--"

"Mulder," she warned, feeling that recent tension building in her again.

"People who tested positive for HIV, and then, suddenly, didn't; people who've had spontaneous remissions of cancers--"

"Stop it!" Scully looked up at him, trying to squelch her anger. "Are you saying that she was taken up into an alien ship for the express purpose of a little corrective surgery?"

"Scully, you saw the scars!" Mulder took another deep breath. "Okay... How do _you_ explain scars that deep that simply heal themselves in a matter of days? They were _half-healed_ by the time she was returned--three days after being abducted!"

"Kidnapped," Scully corrected. She stood, her gaze locked with her partners, for a long, tense minute, before Brophy walked into the room, effectively breaking the mood.

"Um, guys," he said tentatively, sensing the impending argument between them. God, these two could fight. It amazed him that Scully hadn't asked for a transfer _years_ ago. "Dinner's on, if you want some."

Scully gave her partner one last, angry look, before heading into the kitchen.

* * *

Later that evening, Scully sat quietly on the porch by the back door, thinking...

Mulder's theories could be _so_ far-fetched sometimes. That an abductee would be taken simply for the purpose of giving them back something they'd lost _years_ ago... _She'd_ received nothing but pain from her--

She broke off that thought, recognising it as another of Mulder's thoughts that sometimes invaded her psyche. She _knew_ what had happened to her. She'd been shown the boxcar, she remembered the setting... It was only women predisposed to believing that they'd been taken by aliens that truly believed that had happened.

Her initial thoughts thwarted, her mind turned to Sealy Ramirez. The girl seemed perfectly nice; hanging off of every word Dave said in a shy, naive way; laughing at the jokes they'd made around the dinner table...

But there was something about the woman. Something about the way she looked at her, as if she knew everything about Scully...

Or just one important thing in particular...

She was startled out of her reveries by the creaking of the back door, and looked up to find Sealy watching the sky, undisguised wonder in her eyes.

"So this is what it looks like before a storm?" the young legal aide asked quietly. "I don't remember storms from when I was young."

"What _do_ you remember?" Scully asked, gesturing uncomfortably for Sealy to join her. "You seem pretty well-adjusted for a person who hasn't seen a thing in twenty-five years."

Sealy shrugged. "It just feels natural to see," she said finally. "I remember... I _always_ remembered colors. I remember red..." She smiled as she looked into Scully's eyes, with that knowledge that made the older woman shudder. "And blue..." Again, she shrugged. "I remember what a little girl looks like when she goes running with her friends..."

"What did you see the night Ken Fairchild was killed?" Scully asked the question gently. There were reports that Ramirez and Fairchild had been more than working partners.

"I was... He wanted me to stay at his house after... what happened." She wrapped her arms around her body, shielding herself from a cold that was more than hurricane-related. "They wouldn't let me into my apartment yet--still trying to collect evidence--and he had an extra room, so..." she snorted at the discussion of an extra room, telling Scully that the second bed hadn't been necessary.

"He had a meeting with Judge Carstairs... They were discussing the Martin case." She looked down at the older woman suddenly. "Martin was going to be the first big hit we made to the mob in the three years that I've been working on this. They've been slipping through the courts' fingers pretty regularly lately, but we had hard evidence that Martin was behind Judge Marsden's murder... Anyway, they were having a meeting, and I was in the bedroom, watching television." She smiled, childlike. "I didn't think it would be so confusing to _see_ it, you know? Too many images, too fast... It gave me a headache..." Her eyes fell as she continued. "I heard a noise from the living room--like a chair being turned over--a couple of dull thuds--and I went out to see what had happened." Sealy shivered suddenly. "Garibaldi looked right through me--like I was inconsequential. Like I was invisible, or something.

"I guess he didn't know that I could see him," she said finally, smiling a little self-deprecatingly. "I was pretty famous in the courts, you know... 'The Blind Wonder' and all that."

Scully watched her for a moment, as Sealy again turned toward the darkening skies. "What do you see, Sealy?"

"Gray clouds, green trees... There's a squirrel in those bushes over there," she said, pointing to a rustling clump of juniper. Scully looked, but she couldn't see a squirrel. She doubted that Sealy could see it either.

The young hispanic woman turned back from the building storm, smiling at Scully. "You know what it's like, don't you, Agent Scully?"

The older woman froze, trying to keep control of an irrational fear that suddenly hit her full force. "Know what what's like?"

Sealy's next words made Scully want to run for shelter. "Being one of the missing."

The redhead sat still for a moment. "What do you remember, Sealy?"

"There was a light," she said, voice full of wonder. "I remember seeing a light... I'd never seen something so bright before..." She shrugged suddenly, a strange smile on her face. "I just remember that light..."

After a moment, she frowned. "You spilled some of David's spaghetti," she said, gesturing to Scully's collar. "You've got sauce all over your neck."

Scully's hand went up to her neck before her mind noticed the action, but there was nothing there. She smiled reassuringly, less and less sure that Sealy could see the expression. "I need to take a shower anyway," she said, rising and heading into the house, running from the familiar, frightening words of the young legal aide. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, and she didn't even try to meet the girl's eyes. "I'll see you later, Sealy."

Sealy smiled at Scully's choice of words, suddenly child-like again. "Yeah, _see_ you."

But the second the agent was gone, Sealy shuddered as she again tried to shake the vision that assaulted her... A vision that saw Scully with blood on her head...

* * *

"Mulder?" Scully knocked quietly on the door of the bedroom that would be Mulder's until they were finished with this assignment.

"Come in." Mulder was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the television as it reported the latest movements of Hurricane Barbara.

"She's coming in fast," he remarked, as Scully sat next to him. "They think she'll hit shore sometime tomorrow."

"Does that mean they'll move Sealy to another safehouse?"

Mulder shrugged. "Probably not. Unless Barbara gets a lot more powerful than she is now, she won't do more than give this area a little rain."

Scully nodded, and paused a moment before telling him why she _really_ came in. "Mulder... I think you may be wrong about Sealy."

He turned toward her, ready for the fight. "How do you mean?"

"She and I were sitting out on the porch just now, and she said she saw a squirrel in the bushes." She met his questioning gaze, trying to inject certainty past the fear in her own. "There wasn't any squirrel--at least, not that you could see."

"Then she must have better eyesight than you do," Mulder quipped, almost playfully. He sobered. "Scully, she's just regained her sight after twenty-five years. She's bound to--"

"To see things that aren't there," Scully finished for him. "Look, I'm not saying that she hasn't regained _some_ sight. I'm just saying that maybe she can't see everything she thinks she can." She rose, pacing lightly, trying to shake off her unease. "Mulder, the human brain is a largely unknown commodity. She could be taking vague, visual cues, and translating them into some _sort_ of sight--but that doesn't mean she's been miraculously cured."

"So how do you explain that she could identify Garibaldi so perfectly?"

"She's been working on these cases against the mob for three years, Mulder," Scully posited reasonably. "She could probably give you a visual identification on half the mob working out of the capital area."

"But why Garibaldi?"

Scully sighed. "Mulder... Look, Garibaldi's bald, right? So, she dimly saw a bald man at the scene of the murder, and she came up with Garibaldi. It's not so unbelievable."

"But saying that she regained her sight after an abduction _is,_ " Mulder stated for her, watching her nod in agreement.

"Look, Scully, why don't we just talk to her tomorrow, okay? See what _she_ has to say on the subject."

Scully nodded again, sighing at her partner's blind faith in his hunches. Sealy Ramirez wasn't seeing straight...

And neither was Mulder.

* * *

_Virginia Hills Meat Packing Company  
6:43 pm_

Mickey Garibaldi looked up as a small, rat-faced man entered the rundown office. He hated being here--hated hiding out like a whipped dog, waiting desperately for some chance to save himself.

He couldn't figure out how that blind bitch had identified him. She'd walked in on him, but it wasn't like he'd made any noise. If she was fucking clairvoyant now, he'd have to run forever. She was under the government's wing, and he knew she had a little too much information about that hit...

But she damn well wasn't going to live to testify.

"Do you know where she is?" he asked his short, scrawny little visitor.

"Yeah," the man replied in a whiny voice. "Had to shake a few trees at police headquarters, but we found her."

"Good. Send Alvarez and Littlefield out there and take care of her. There's no way I'm standing trial for this one, Billy. Got it?"

Billy smiled, looking for all the world like the wolf, ready to devour grandma. "Don't worry, Mickey," he assured the balding man before him. "They'll never even be able to pick you up for this one."

Mickey smiled coldly in return. "You'd better be right, Billy... Or you're one dead little Irishman."

Billy stared at Garibaldi for a moment, watching those murderous eyes, as they sized him up. "I'll make sure they do it right, Mick. I promise."

Garibaldi sighed angrily as the little man left the room. He turned back to the window behind him. If he was going to make sure that Ramirez was dead, he was going to have to see her for himself.

And before she died, he'd make her tell him how she knew...

* * *

_Virginia countryside  
2:14 am_

Scully watched the circle of people, her strange vantage point near the ceiling giving her the feeling of a director on a camera's crane.

They sat loosely, staring at the center of the circle, as her mind's eyes focused on each face in turn... Two young women, one short and broad with dark hair and eyes, the other tall and thin and fair... She couldn't remember their names, but she knew them as the women she'd met in Allentown. A silent, dark woman sat next to them, and though she'd never seen her before, Scully's name for her was Besty Hagopian... A slim, tender teenager sat next to the trio... Ruby... Beside her sat Max Fenig, missing the baseball cap that now graced Mulder's coat tree... Duane Barry, still in _her_ college sweatshirt, still that wild look in his eyes...

But it was the face that completed the circle that jolted Scully out of an unsound sleep, sweat rolling down her face as she gasped for breath...

That final face was her own.

Scully rose, heading for the bathroom down the hall. She'd already reached it by the time she noticed the howling of the wind as it found a thousand nooks and crannies in the house to whistle through. The storm was coming, and it sounded like it was going to be worse than they'd anticipated.

After splashing water on her face, checking to make sure she didn't look as much a wreck as she felt, Scully padded down the hall, hearing the telltale sounds of the television, seeing the crack of fluttering light from under Mulder's door.

"Come in." Mulder didn't seem to have moved from his position at the foot of the bed, and he looked up, a brightness to his eyes, as she entered.

"She's heee-ere!" he announced playfully, sounding a little too much like that girl from _The Poltergeist._

"So I noticed," Scully remarked drily, as she took up a spot next to him, and watched the newscast.

"...Hurricane Barbara took an unexpected turn for the coast tonight, and is expected to hit northern Virginia by morning..."

"I love the way they can use 'unexpected' and 'expected' in the same sentence and still get paid," Mulder smirked. He was like a little kid, enjoying the spectacle of the coming destruction.

The windows were rattling so furiously that the knock on the door came three times before they heard it. Dave Brophy stood, the same brightness in his eyes that Mulder's had, and said quietly, "I just got a call from the Bureau. We're just gonna stay here and wait out the storm, I guess." He smiled ironically. "They don't have another safehouse ready."

"Great."

"Come on, Scully," Mulder responded, as his partner followed her remark up with a sigh. "It's just a storm. It'll be fun."

"Not if somebody doesn't get into town and get some supplies, it isn't," Brophy remarked.

"I'll go," Mulder offered immediately, looking at Brophy, then down at himself. "I'm the only one still dressed anyway."

He made it sound like a criticism, and Brophy grinned meanly. "At two-thirty in the morning, I'm not sure that's anything to be proud of."

"Ha ha," Mulder replied, heading for the door.

"Hey, Mulder," Brophy called after him. "Take my Wagoneer. These roads are bad enough in good weather, and the rains are likely to hit before you get back."

They headed downstairs, and Brophy grabbed his keys off of the table in the kitchen. "It's in the barn," he said quietly, all too aware that Sealy Ramirez was sleeping in the next room. He slipped into his coat. "Come on, I'll walk you out. The starter's shot in that thing, and it takes a couple of tricks to get it going."

"Great," Mulder replied, sounding very much like his partner upstairs. "I think I'll just take the rental."

Brophy shook his head. "No way you'll get back up here in it--not if the rains start up too soon. The bridge down there has a tendency to wash out."

Mulder paused a moment at the door. "This is a _safe_ house?"

His companion laughed. "Yeah, I know. Your tax dollars at work."

 

They were both far too wind-swept by the time they reached the barn, and Mulder wondered whether this was the best idea he'd ever had. It was going to be hard enough to steer in this wind. When it became wind _and_ rain...

"Why is there an ambulance here?" he asked suddenly, as they entered the dilapidated old structure. Next to Brophy's beat-up old Wagoneer sat a fine, shiny ambulance--more out of place than Mulder would have considered possible.

"Well, it _is_ a safe house," Brophy dead-panned.

"Honestly," Mulder persisted.

Brophy shrugged. "It's here for emergencies. This is normally a medical safehouse, for witnesses who are also victims. There's even a small clinic at the back of the house--just in case."

"Well," Mulder said, sliding into the Wagoneer and fiddling with the key. "Let's hope it's still here when I get back."

* * *

Ronald Alvarez cursed his boss once more, as he fought against the steering wheel of his shiny new four-by-four. Why _he_ had to be picked to off the Blind Wonder in the middle of a hurricane was beyond him. And couldn't the FBI have been a little kinder? Couldn't they have put her in a safehouse in D.C., or something?

"Car coming," Hal Littlefield barked shortly. Alvarez slid the truck into the nearest copse of trees, as a large truck or van drove past.

"What the hell is that doing up here?" he wondered.

Littlefield shrugged. "Maybe they're moving the witness?" he ventured.

"Shit," Alvarez cursed quietly, as he turned the car back the way they'd come.

"What are you doing?"

He sighed for his partner's lack of wit. "If we don't follow that truck, we won't know whether the witness is in it. And if we can't _find_ the witness, we can't kill her."

"Oh."

Oh.

Oh!

God, why was he always being paired with certified dumbshits whose only claims to fame were their guns and their knives! Sometimes, he thought he'd be a lot better off working freelance. That way, he could pick his own partners.

The road was getting harder to follow now, and he was tempted to turn on his headlights, but, even with the wind bouncing around every light they saw, the car up ahead was sure to know that he was behind them. So he plugged on, watching for fallen trees, and wincing every time the wind shifted.

* * *

_3:45 am_

Scully had moved downstairs, working on the assumption that the wind wouldn't be as noisy at ground level. It hadn't worked yet, but she was hopeful that the wind would eventually see things her way.

"Agent Scully?"

Sealy Ramirez walked cautiously into the room, jumping as yet another shutter took its turn at beating the house to death. She sat nervously on the edge of the couch, smiling slightly. "I hate storms. Always have. My dad always said it was because my hearing was more developed--because of the blindness."

Scully nodded. "Where's Brophy?"

Sealy grinned embarrassedly. "He's um... He's in the kitchen, watching the storm. I don't know how he can do that," she said after a moment, shivering at the thought. "The lightening reminds me of..."

"What?" Scully asked nervously, as the silence lengthened.

"You know," Sealy replied with a shrug. She turned slightly, probing Scully again with her uncomfortable gaze. "It's different for us."

"Us?"

Sealy shrugged again, and this time, it was resigned. "We come back... different. You feel it, don't you?"

Scully was starting to sweat now. Her dream from earlier in the night came to her, fresh and painful, coupled with Sealy's perceptive words from the evening before.

"Anyway," Sealy said, turning from her at last. "The lightening reminds of _them_ \--of the way they come."

A bright light, flashing across the Blue Ridge Mountains, seared through Scully's soul.

One of _us..._

She was saved from any further musings by the crashing of a window in the back of the house. Brophy was in the room in an instant, a trail of blood starting to run down from his forehead.

"What happened?" Scully asked, rising to examine the cut. It was minor, really--but the sound hadn't been.

"The windows just blew in the kitchen," Brophy replied, slightly out of breath.

"Oh, David!" Sealy cried, walking up to him, her hand going to his left shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He shrugged it off, a little surprised that she would get so worked up at a little cut. "I'm fine. But the storm's getting worse." He sighed. "I think we might want to move down into the shelter."

"There's a shelter?" This was the first Scully had heard of it. She would have been down there an hour ago--just to get away from the sound of the wind.

Brophy nodded. "Yeah. Standard storm shelter. I didn't think we were going to need it, but--" The wind cut him off, answering the thought for him, as they heard another window shattering upstairs.

"Come on," he said shortly. "Get some more warm clothes--it's going to be freezing down there, but it's better than being pelted by broken windows."

Scully should have known that it would be the window in _her_ bedroom that had shattered. She took a deep breath, plunging into the wind-buffeted chaos that her room had become, grabbing her overnight case and last night's clothes. As an afterthought, she grabbed her gun from the nightstand. Why she would need it in the storm shelter, she didn't know...

She just had a feeling.

As she passed Mulder's room, she cursed lightly. He'd be soaked by the time he got back--unless the bridge was washed out already...

She grabbed his bag, and hurried down to the relative sanity of the shelter.

* * *

 _Pack 'n' Pay_  
Sweetbridge, VA  
3:53 am

Mulder sighed as he jiggled the key to the old Wagoneer. Brophy wasn't the most highly-paid agent in the Bureau, but surely he could have afforded something better than _this!_

He really should have taken the rental car... Absolutely... Without a doubt...

 

At the other end of the parking lot, Ronald Alvarez smiled. Just one guy... So the witness was still at the house. He'd just follow this guy back. He was probably one of only a few guys watching the bitch... He and Littlemind over there could take care of this one as soon as they arrived...

And that would make it that much easier to get this job finished quickly.

* * *

_Federal Safehouse, VA_

Scully looked up, startled, as something crashed into the floor above them. Would the floor stand it if the house came down completely?

"It'll stay put," Brophy remarked, as if reading her thoughts. "This house has stood for a hundred years. I'm fairly sure it won't shake apart just because _we're_ here."

"I wonder where Mulder is," Scully mused--more for something to say than because she needed to say it.

"He's probably still in Sweetbridge," Brophy replied, digging aroung in what little food had been left in the kitchen. "If he's smart, he'll stay there till the worst is over."

"He would have called," Scully said stoutly, knowing that that was the case... Hoping it was, at any rate. As the storm got louder and louder, she hoped he was somewhere safe.

"You honestly think a cellular is going to work in this wind?" Brophy asked, shooting her a reassuring glance as her eyes widened. "He'll be fine. Mulder's smarter than to drive in a hurricane."

* * *

Mulder cursed as a fallen tree branch blocked his way, falling mere inches from the front of the vehicle. He shouldn't have gone out to get supplies, _that's_ what he shouldn't have done...

The branch thrown to the side of the road, he got back into the Wagoneer, hoping that the next one wasn't too big for him to move--and hoping that, drenched as he was, he didn't die of pneumonia before he got there!

* * *

Alvarez was glad the guy in the truck was driving in front of him. It made clearing the road a lot easier.

Littlefield jumped in his seat at another great crack of lightening, spooked by the storm. Hell, littlebrain was probably spooked by the fact that he woke up in the morning! He had to be the _jitteriest_ guy Alvarez had ever worked with.

Freelancing was definitely the way to go... Yes, sir...

And with what he was getting paid for this hit, he might just be able to do it. Buying your way out of the mob wasn't cheap, but then, neither were his services.

"We're nearly there, Hal," he said, watching as the lights from the vehicle before them lit up a rickety old barn.

"Sharpen that knife of yours."

* * *

_4:42 am_

Mulder grumbled to himself as he grabbed the bags from the Wagoneer, hefting them as he prepared to brave the weather that stood between him and the house. Damn! He wished there was some way to get over there without walking across that far-too-exposed field. He should have just pulled the damn thing up to the door of the house, but he'd seen what the wind did to poor, defenseless cars, and he didn't want to have Brophy's truck sitting in the living room come morning...

As if in answer to his wish, he noticed the door to a root cellar, slightly raised from the barn floor. Maybe it led to the house... A lot of them did, connecting the barn and the house, so that the farmers didn't have to risk freezing their asses off while they went out to milk the cows.

Not freezing his ass off sounded like a wonderful idea to Mulder just now, and he set the bags next to the beaten-up old vehicle, heading over to the door.

He was perhaps ten feet from the Wagoneer when the barn door slammed open--

And all hell broke loose.

* * *

_5:15 am_

"Scully, sit down, for God's sake."

Dave Brophy watched the slight young agent walk the length of the room once more before he stood, barring her path. "I said, stop it."

She glared up at him angrily for a moment, before seating herself on one of the old, broken-down chairs they'd found.

The storm shelter wasn't as well-kept as the house had been. Scully guessed that the FBI had never had to use it before. And they weren't likely to be _able_ to use it again, she thought nervously, as she heard another tremendous crash from above.

She just had a feeling that Mulder wasn't in Sweetbridge, sipping coffee at some diner while he waited for the worst to pass. Brophy had made that crack about him being smart enough not to try to get back in this storm, but Scully knew her partner too well...

"He's fine, Scully," Brophy said quietly, sitting beside her.

She nodded her head dully, wishing that she could believe him.

* * *

Mulder watched with a sick satisfaction as the bullet from his gun drilled into the dark man's chest. The two men had been on him in seconds, but they weren't fast enough to prevent him from drawing his gun.

The smaller, heftier man came at him again, and Mulder gasped loudly, as he felt a trail of fire run from his chest to his belly. His finger jerked on the trigger and he fell back, as the man before him dropped heavily to the ground, a pool of blood growing beneath him.

Very like the pool that Mulder could feel himself starting, as he tried to stagger to the door he'd seen set in the ground.

The open barn door let in the worst of the wind, creating a vicious tunnel of air, and Mulder found himself flat on his back before he even noticed it... His lungs didn't seem to work properly anymore, and he was finding it harder and harder to fight against the wind to take a breath.

He had to get to that door. If he didn't get below ground soon, he'd die right here, in a barn that clearly wasn't going to hold up to the elements much longer... He _wanted_ to get to the house, but he _had_ to get to that door...

* * *

Scully spent the next twenty minutes roaming around the underground shelter--though there wasn't really much to wander around. She opened the one small door in the room, glancing into a rough pantry, before shutting it again in frustration.

Something was wrong... She just had the feeling that _something_ was wrong!

And, she decided, heading for her overnight bag and grabbing up her flashlight, that feeling had never failed her before.

Brophy caught her as she reached the stairs. "Where do you think you're going, Agent Scully?"

"Mulder might have run into trouble," she explained lamely.

"And you're going to run into a damn sight more if you go out there," Brophy replied angrily. "Look, Mulder probably just got caught too far from the house. He found shelter somewhere else." Scully tried to push past him, and the young man blocked her way firmly. "He's going to kill me if he finds out I let you go all the way to Oz looking for him."

Scully locked eyes with him for a moment, trying to get him to back down. After a moment, it reminded her of trying to stare down Mulder--like staring down a rock. She stepped back with a frustrated sigh.

"Much better."

She almost hit him for his condescension, but that emminently practical part of her mind told her that, for all his babying, he was probably right. After all, Mulder had been through hurricanes before--the Vineyard was a prime spot for them up north. He'd have seen it coming...

Her "feeling" told her to screw logic--just this once--and she found herself pushing angrily past the young black man.

Brophy gave her a scathing stare, but she brushed it off. "Just stay with Ramirez," Scully ordered, grabbing her gun--just in case. "I'll be back in a minute."

* * *

Mulder cringed weakly, as the roof of the barn came off, filling his already pounding head with more noise and pain. The rain that came down on him felt like daggers, and, as he seemed unlikely to make it to that damn door, he tried to pull himself into the lee of the ambulance that stood nearby. He didn't make it far, but far enough to at least shield him from the worst of it.

He tried desperately to keep breathing--an uphill task, as his lungs, the right one, anyway, now seemed unwilling to even meet him halfway on that proposition. Just keep breathing, he thought, and, hopefully, he'd somehow find the strength to ride out the storm....

* * *

The house was a shattered wreck, and Scully had to grab on to what was left of the kitchen's little half wall, just to pull herself out of the cellar. She felt the door slam shut behind her, and headed for what, mere hours ago, had been the front door, stumbling out to the porch.

A tall, dark pickup truck stood parked next to the barn, swaying dangerously in the wind and threatening to fly through the old building's wall.

Not that there was much of a wall left. The barn was coming down--even faster than the house--and the very presence of that car proved that Scully's fears were justified.

With a deep breath, she ran toward the barn, grateful that the storm had denied the sunrise, keeping her in perpetual shadow as she approached.

The broad double doors of the barn were open, and she slid carefully around the doorway, her gun ready, her flashlight out...

Brophy's Wagoneer was back, and it, their rental sedan, and the sturdy ambulance they had stashed here--just in case--were getting ready to take flight in the high winds. She could see that the roof had already come off, could feel the freezing rain pouring down on her like acid, adding insult to the injury of her mad dash through the storm.

She took a deep breath and called out to her partner, unsurprised when even _she_ couldn't hear the word over the winds. She stood still, running her flashlight slowly over the area around her. Her breath caught at what she saw, and she barely croaked the word: "Mulder..."

But the dead man, not fifteen feet beyond the door, wasn't Mulder. He was a young man, dark hair, latino features. His clothing was typically street--a leather jacket, blue jeans, and high tops. He'd been shot in the chest, and the driving rain had spread his blood into a macabre pool that was slowly covering him.

She pulled out her gun, as her flashlight's beam fished around a bit more, dropping onto another man, also not Mulder, who was, likewise, shot dead in the chest. This one was short, heavy-set--and beside his body lay a large, deadly-looking knife...

Which really made her wonder where Mulder was.

Her call to him was swallowed up by a chance bolt of lightining, but she continued to walk around the area, looking for him, her flashlight leading her way. Again, it caught on a spreading pool of blood, and, with legs made unsure by the crushing winds, Scully headed toward it.

The blood started by driver's side of the Wagoneer, leading her across the building to the group of cars that huddled against the hurricane. She gave up following it when she saw the lump by the ambulance, and knew instinctively that it was her partner.

"Mulder?" She had to get her lips right to his ear to hope to make herself heard, but she got no response. The shuddering of the ambulance behind him, the howl of the wind... She couldn't even tell if he was still alive.

She took a deep breath. First order of business-- _assume_ he's alive (she really couldn't stand to do otherwise)--and find out how badly he's hurt. His trenchcoat was intact, but the shirt and t-shirt beneath it were soaked in blood. Watching closely, she saw his left side rise and fall in a shallow, unsteady rhythm... She carefully examined his right side, finding the wound easily amid the blood-mixed rain. It was hard to miss, as his heart acted as an efficient pump, pushing the blood out of what was obviously a near-fatal wound.

God, what the hell was she supposed to do for him out here? He needed surgery--direct pressure was going to be a joke at this point... She looked up at the ambulance behind him, leaving his side for a moment, as her brain raced. She should have everything she needed right there...

A large hand grabbed onto her shoulder as she reached for the vehicle's back door, and she whirled, her gun immediately in the man's face.

"Whoa, Scully!" David Brophy had to shout to make himself heard, but her gun was at her side again in an instant.

"Mulder's hurt!" Scully yelled over the increasing storm, not bothering to wonder why Brophy had followed her. "We've got to get the bleeding stopped!"

Brophy followed her around the side of the ambulance, wincing as he saw the injuries to his fellow agent. "We've got to get him to the shelter!"

"We can't move him! The bleeding's already too severe, and we can't take him out into the storm!"

"Sealy found a door at the back of the pantry," Brophy shouted over the wind. "A tunnel leads from the shelter to the barn! That's how I got here. We can take him down that way."

Scully shook her head desperately. "We can't move--"

"Scully!" Brophy took her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. "This barn is coming _down!_ We can't stay here!"

Scully gazed at him a moment, before her eyes drifted to the ambulance. "I can put him in the ambulance. It'll have--"

"Damnit, Scully!" Brophy screamed, shaking her. "That ambulance is going to be a _plane_ in about two minutes!" He softened as her eyes fell despondently. "Look, I'll get the stretcher. We'll strap him on, and you can do whatever you need to in the storm cellar, okay?"

When she didn't answer, Brophy dropped his grip on her. He watched her sigh and kneel beside her partner again, and headed for the tail end of the vehicle, pulling on the door latch. Locked. Giving the mechanism a round cursing, he pulled out his gun, fired two rounds into the lock, and wrenched it open.

The sound of those shots, easily heard over the wind, caused Mulder to jerk painfully awake, his eyes snapping open and looking around frantically.

With a deep sigh of relief, Scully bent down to him. "Mulder," she called into his ear. "You'll be okay. We're going to get you out of here."

As her partner's eyes slid shut again, Scully had no idea if he had heard her--less, if he'd understood. But it was the sound of her voice that mattered, she told herself. Just so that he heard the sound of a friendly voice...

* * *

It took two trips to get them safely downstairs with all the equipment that Scully would need to take care of him. Now that they were below ground, away from the worst of the wind's howling, Scully could hear the painful wheezing of Mulder's breath.

"Okay, Agent Scully," Brophy said, amazingly calm for the fact that he was standing next to a gurney that leaked blood all over the barren concrete floor. "What do we do now?"

"How much medical training do you have?"

Brophy smiled. "As much as you need."

* * *

Sealy was on her feet as they entered through the pantry, her hand going to her mouth in horror. "What happened?"

Scully was really too busy to answer. She looked down at the supplies she'd brought, sorting through them until she found a needle kit...

Great, she thought, threading a needle carefully. No anesthetic, practically no _antiseptic_... She wondered morbidly if she wouldn't do him more good just sewing a shroud.

The uncharacteristically macabre thought sparked her anger, and she fairly barked commands at Brophy, who stripped Mulder to the waist, spreading what precious little iodine they had onto the wound.

Scully looked once more at Mulder's face, before she turned to her hastily recruited nurse. "Brophy, watch his breathing--and his pulse... We have to get the lung reinflated..."

* * *

She'd lost track of time long before she sewed the last stitch... But he was still breathing--both lungs, now--and his pulse seemed about as dismal as she would have expected...

Sealy came up to her carefully, offering a chair. With a grateful sigh, Scully motioned for Brophy to help her lower the gurney, and took a seat next to it, watching each and every breath Mulder took.

"Will he be okay?"

Scully looked up at the quiet question, seeing sorrow in those strange, sighted eyes of Sealy Ramirez. She sighed deeply. "We have to get him to a hospital... If we don't..."

They sat in silence for a moment. Then, in a sad whisper, Sealy made a statement that suddenly shook Scully to her bones. "I could see the wound."

The other woman clearly didn't understand, and Sealy loosed a heavy sigh, watching Mulder's chest rise and fall as she spoke.

"When I met you, I saw... I had a... vision--of Agent Mulder with blood... all over..." She looked up, meeting Scully eyes with a deep sadness. "This isn't over."

"What do you mean, Sealy?" Scully found herself caught up in the girl's words. A thought from Mulder quietly rolled around in her mind. Sealy might have received more than just _eye_ sight from her "miracle."

"You have to be careful," Sealy said in a whisper. "I've seen you, too..."

* * *

_7:48 am_

Mickey Garibaldi cursed roundly, as he pulled himself out of the jeep. Damn good thing he'd had it stashed somewhere where he could get to it--he'd never have gotten past that old bridge otherwise.

Alvarez and Littlefield were dead. No big surprise. He was glad now that he'd thought to come after them--to make sure they got it right.

Now, he'd have to do it himself...

* * *

_7:52 am_

Scully jerked awake, looking around herself in panic, as her mind slowly filtered what had happened. She looked over at Mulder, watching carefully as he breathed, her own breath catching as she realized that he was breathing a little _too_ quickly. A hand to his forehead confirmed her fear--a fever... infection.

As if she should be surprised, she thought angrily. That had probably been the most antique surgery performed in this state since the Civil War! She rose with a sigh, and shook Brophy awake.

"Wha?" he asked blearily.

"Keep an eye on Mulder," she said shortly, grabbing her coat and flashlight. "I'm going to go up to the ambulance and see if I can find some antibiotics and an IV."

Brophy sat up straighter. "What happened?"

"Infection," she grated angrily.

"Scully, I think--"

"Just--" Scully took a moment and calmed herself. "Just watch him, okay?"

* * *

The storm had died down, but Scully was hardly relieved by the relative quiet. It would start up again as soon as the eye of the hurricane passed this area of the coast... Another day at least before they could think about getting Mulder out of here.

The ambulance was canted over to one side now, leaning on the slightly crushed remains of the rental car, and Scully crawled in the back, hunting in the shelves and drawers, gathering more supplies for her makeshift clinic down below...

* * *

Garibaldi headed back to the barn, cursing a mile a minute as he went. There was nothing left in the house... But those damns feds _had_ to be here somewhere! Alvarez and Littlefield couldn't have been more than an hour or two ahead of him, and the storm last night had been too bad for them to have gotten out! He walked around Alvarez's pickup--and stopped cold.

There was someone in the barn.

He slipped over to the side of the doorway quietly, zeroing in on the sounds of plastic rattling in the ambulance that sat at the end of the row of vehicles. How had someone slipped past him? The question answered itself, as he saw the open cellar door. Beside it was a long, thick plank of wood--just the right size for making sure whoever was in that ambulance didn't come looking for him when he went after Ramirez...

* * *

Scully sat back, looking over the equipment before her. She didn't have everything she wanted, but she was fairly sure that she could keep Mulder alive for the time it would take to get him back to civilization.

She tried not to hear Sealy Ramirez's words as they rattled around in her mind. "This isn't over," she'd said. Well, she was right about that--this wasn't over. And it wouldn't be until she got Mulder safely to a hospital, where they could do a proper job of getting him well again.

"I've seen you, too."

Scully fought to ignore that soft-spoken voice, but it wouldn't go away. "I've seen you, too..."

No. The two men--obviously sent by Garibaldi or his men--were dead. There was no way someone could have fought through this storm to make sure those two did their job. _Nothing_ was going to happen...

She'd just about convinced herself of that when a thick pain at the base of her neck dropped the world out from under her.

* * *

Garibaldi worked his way slowly along the tunnel, listening carefully for any signs of life at the other end. There were _no_ signs of life above--not after the whack he'd given that woman. He hadn't noticed the rusty nail that was sticking out of the plank he'd used, but it had been more than sufficient to put a nice hole in the back of her neck. Not dead-center, mind you, he thought coldly, but enough to ensure that she probably wasn't going to jump up and run after him.

He snuck into the pantry silently, listened for a moment before sliding into the shadows in the room beyond...

* * *

Brophy stood up, taking his own turn at pacing. Scully had been up there just a bit too long... and given the way this assignment had been going, that pretty much meant she must in trouble.

"I'm going up there, Sealy," he said suddenly, grabbing his gun. He paused, looking at the frightened cast of Ramirez's eyes, and rooted around in Mulder's bag until he found the older man's gun. He held it out to her, the barrel in his hand.

"Everything's going to be fine, Sealy," he whispered quietly, as she took the weapon, dreading its cold feel in the palm of her hand. "Just keep watch. I'll be back in a second."

She intercepted him as he reached the pantry door. "David..." She suddenly had that vision of him again--blood covering his shirt, a painful sweat on his face. She shuddered and grasped his left shoulder--still whole. "Don't go out there, please."

"It'll be okay," he assured her.

Sealy's eyes went wide in a brief second, and Brophy barely felt the blow that almost knocked him cold.

Mickey Garibaldi grabbed Sealy, wresting the gun from her hand. "Sorry _David,_ " he said, sneering at Ramirez's personal tone. "But she's right. You really shouldn't be going out there."

* * *

Scully came to herself slowly, groaning deeply at the pain in her skull. She opened her eyes, seeing double, and wondering where the hell she was, and how she'd gotten there.

There was wind blowing--seemed to be picking up... She looked around her, trying desperately to focus, and vaguely recognized her surroundings as an ambulance... But if she was in an ambulance, where were the EMTs?

And was the vehicle _actually_ tilting, or was that just her?

It took precious moments for her mind to piece it all together, but she suddenly found herself bolting from the ambulance, heading for the cellar door on painfully unsteady legs...

* * *

"Well," Garibaldi said conversationally, keeping a close eye on both Ramirez and Brophy. "Got yourselves a regular little OR here, huh?"

Brophy rose up slowly onto his elbows, hiding his gun carefully behind him. His head was still a little foggy as he shook off the effects of Garibaldi's well-placed strike. He looked up at the murderer, watched the man's eyes slide over to take in Fox Mulder, still unconscious on the ambulance gurney, and saw his opening--

Garibaldi actually laughed at the young man's attempt to get the jump on him, as Mulder's gun drilled the black man decisively in the shoulder. Sealy Ramirez, previously frozen by her fear of seeing Garibaldi, let out a short bark of terror, and ran past the bald man, crouching beside Brophy, who hovered indecisively between wakefulness and the dark.

She grabbed Brophy's gun, and had it trained on Garibaldi before the man knew what was happening. His small, cold eyes narrowed angrily.

"What the hell is up with you?"

"Drop the gun," Sealy whispered, terrified. "Drop the gun, or I'll kill you."

Garibaldi smiled a wolf's smile, and watched her carefully. She was bluffing. The damn bitch couldn't see a thing! What was she going to do, just blow away at the dark? He watched her carefully, as he dropped his gun, crouching immediately to pick it up again.

The look in his eyes when she shot him was almost comical in its indignation. "How the hell..."

"I can see you, Garibaldi," she grated painfully, tears of fear and anger coursing down her face as she rose to her feet. "I can see you now, and I _saw_ you kill Ken!"

She approached him slowly, her strangely focused eyes still seeing him, somehow. She shuddered as the view changed, transmuting the murderer into a lump of curiously burned flesh in seconds. "And now you're going to die," she whispered. "You're going to die just like he did."

"Sealy! No!"

Dana Scully's command hadn't held the power it normally did, but it was enough to make the young legal aide pause. "Sealy," Scully pleaded hoarsely. "Put down the gun. I have him."

Ramirez shook her head. "No way. He killed Ken--he shot David! ...He deserves to die!"

Scully wanted to answer--wanted to stop the girl in her advance on Garibaldi, who seemed to be regaining his wits, if slowly. But she found, suddenly, that the pulsing of blood in her head had increased. She felt a horrible pressure in her ears, crushing her mind as her eyesight narrowed to a pinpoint.

She could barely see Sealy, as the younger woman looked around her, terrified. "No!" she screamed, her tears increasing. "No! Not now!"

Scully tried to focus her pounding brain, tried to follow Sealy's actions. But the young woman was frenzied, running away from her, away from the wounded that littered the floor, running to a corner and trying to make herself as small as possible.

"They're coming again!" Sealy screamed, sounding pitifully like a child whose father had come to punish her. "They're coming!"

Scully's mind just could not process what the young woman was saying, but she knew she had to get to her. She had to get to her and get that gun from her, and somehow, somehow, get her calmed down.

"Sealy?" she called quietly, heading across the room as quickly as her tunnel-vision and crushing headache would allow. "Sealy, it's okay."

"IT'S NOT!" Sealy screamed, as the pressure in the room came up a notch. "IT'S NOT! THEY'RE HERE!"

Scully had just reached the girl when she felt a tremendous force slam into her, throwing her back to lay against the far wall in shock. Her vision almost gone, she was suddenly aware of a vicious cry from the area of the pantry door.

Garibaldi!

"What the hell did you do, you bitch!" he screamed, his voice passing before Scully, his vague shadow heading for the corner where Sealy crouched. "How the FUCK did you know?"

Scully forced her eyes to focus on the man's rush toward Sealy, allowed her body no lee way as she pushed herself up against the wall, her gun rising to take him out before he could get to that corner.

The light was instantly blinding, and Scully found she couldn't even raise her hands to her eyes in an effort to ward it off. A sudden snatch of conversation ran through her mind as she fought to see beyond the glare... "The lightning reminds me of them... of the way they come."

As the light died, Scully decided that she must be hallucinating. The blow to the head, the strange effects on pressure that the storm seemed to be causing. She _had_ to be hallucinating...

Because, if she wasn't, she was patently insane.

Sealy Ramirez floated, convulsing painfully, above the now-motionless body of Mickey Garibaldi, bathed in a curious blue light. Scully blinked her eyes quickly, trying to deny what she saw--

When, suddenly, Sealy disappeared. Just... disappeared. The agent felt the pressure drop suddenly, felt her own body collapse tiredly to the ground, and found herself almost weeping. She had to be crazy! That could not have happened!

With a skill grown of four years of complete denial, Scully shoved those visions to the back of her mind, half-crawling to where Mickey Garibaldi's body lay.

He was burnt--badly burnt... But, like the bodies found in Ramirez's living room, there was no proof that he had died right there in front of her, right on that spot of unmolested concrete.

Scully's head turned painfully as she heard a low groan come up from the other side of the room. David Brophy was trying to rise, and she staggered carefully over to him, dropping her gun to the ground as she reached him.

Brophy seemed to take stock of the situation slowly, his eyes scanning the room, seeing Garibaldi's body, _not_ seeing Sealy... and finally settling on the woman who leaned over him blurrily, her blood dripping slowly onto his own already-covered shirt.

"What happened?" he asked vaguely. "Where's Sealy?"

Scully took a moment to answer. "I don't know," she answered finally. It _was_ the truth--or as much of it as she would admit.

Brophy's right hand came up, indicating the blood that was trailing down the side of Scully's neck, to puddle on his chest. "You're hurt."

Scully smiled wearily. "We'll deal with that later. First," she said, standing unsteadily, trying to help him to his feet, "let's try to get _you_ cleaned up." She grinned--a little drunkenly, Brophy thought--and joked, "I knew I brought down that extra suture kit for a reason."

She was surprisingly silent as she cleaned the wound, and Brophy didn't press the issue. She was scared, under all that pain. Something she had seen had terrified her, and he didn't think she'd _want_ to talk about it for a long, long time.

He watched her consider his wound, consider the suture kit... and sigh deeply. "I'm not... I can't see straight to do this, David," she admitted, the exhaustion in her voice enough to prove to Brophy the she was telling the truth. "It went clean through," she continued, her words slurring slightly more, now that the adrenaline had finally worked itself out of her system. "You won't bleed to death... We should... should be able to get out of here tomorrow..." She locked eyes with him, tears of exhaustion and frustration shining in hers. "Once I just... rest--for a while."

"It's okay, Scully," he murmured quietly. It had taken _so_ much out of her to admit that, for once, she wasn't going to be Superwoman. For once, she was having a hard time taking care of herself, much less anyone else.

Brophy's face split into a grin suddenly. "Too bad that ambulance didn't have a few more gurneys, huh?"

Scully tried to smile at the joke, but it fell far short of anything he'd seen from her before.

"Just go to sleep, Scully," he whispered. "I'll try to get through on the cellular."

"I shouldn't sleep, David," she said, her body already betraying her as she sank to the floor and curled quietly in on herself. "The concussion..."

"Don't worry," Brophy whispered with a smile, as he watched her drop off. "I'll wake you when your shift starts."

* * *

_11:21 am_

"Scully?"

Brophy shook her shoulder once more, his nervousness increasing. He'd only let her sleep for a few hours--standard procedure for concussions. But now... it was so hard to wake her... and Mulder was waking up--taking his own sweet time about it, but waking all the same--Scully would need to check him over, make sure the infection hadn't gotten too much worse.

"Scully?"

She finally turned slightly, her eyes coming slowly open, slightly more focused than they had been this morning. "Hmm... yeah?"

"Come on," Brophy said quietly. "Mulder's fever's still going."

Scully pulled herself up, focussing on the man's words. She watched him smile down at her, and tried to smile back herself.

"How you feeling?"

It was Mulder's line, Scully thought, a little sadly. She tried not to shrug. "Better than I was." Her hand reached up to touch her neck, and she found a roughly taped bandage in her way. She looked up questioningly, and Brophy shrugged.

"Best I could do with one arm," he said, mock-defensive.

Scully did nod this time, desperately wished she hadn't, and fought to her feet through the tide of nausea, looking at the bandages that swathed the black man's shoulder. She grimaced, started tearing off the tape. "Do me a favour, David," she whispered. "Don't ever doctor yourself, okay? I think even Mulder could have done better."

Brophy smiled as she quickly re-bandaged his wound. "The doctor was definitely out last night," he commented, no recrimination in his voice, though Scully winced at the implication anyway.

"Sorry."

He shrugged with his good arm. "'Sokay." He rose, helped her up from her crouch. He nodded to a collection of IV tubing and solution bags that sat on the floor beside Mulder's gurney. "Why don't you see what you can do for Mulder, while I see what _I_ can do about getting somebody out here to rescue our butts." He headed for the pantry door.

"Where are you going?"

"I want to see if I can get the ambulance radio working," he answered. "And... I thought I'd see what the weather is like."

 

Scully looked down at the IV bag in her hand, a little lost, and still very, very fuzzy. How was she supposed to hang the damn thing? She looked around herself carefully, catching sight of a set of metal shelves across the room. It took most of her already-flagging energy to drag them over to him, but they were enough to set up the drip and start getting some fluids and antibiotics into his system.

She checked his pulse again, whining tiredly as she found it far too rapid. She hoped Brophy was having some luck with that radio, though she doubted they'd be able to get out of here before tomorrow, given the way she could hear the winds building above them. The eye had passed, and they were in for a rough day...

 

Mulder tried to blink his eyes, but found that, for now, it simply took too much energy. He settled on clearing his throat instead, and the cool hand on his forehead that that slight noise precipitated was enough to force his eyes open.

Scully looked almost as bad as he felt... No, he amended wryly. He wasn't even sure there _was_ a look that compared to this kind of pain. Still, he found himself looking worriedly into her vague eyes as she whispered quietly to him.

"Hey, Mulder." Her voice was raw. "How are you doing?"

"Got any aspirin?" he croaked almost silently.

She smiled. What Mulder said when he first woke could tell her everything she needed to know about whether he would recover. These small, lame jokes were as reassuring as the smile that he always mustered for her.

"If I did, I'd've taken it myself," she quipped back slowly.

"What happened?"

He was asking about her, not himself. "I'm okay, Mulder," she assured him.

"There was... a light," he murmured quietly.

 

Scully froze. He'd been awake when it happened. Had he seen what she thought she saw? She'd just about convinced herself that it was an hallucination--a product of her own injuries...

"What did you see?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head carefully. "I don't know... just a light..."

She ran a hand through his hair, worried by the heat she felt coming off of him. "Just the lightning, Mulder," she explained, hoping he was too exhausted to hear the lie. "It was just the lightning..."

* * *

_1:15 pm_

"How's he doing?"

Brophy looked entirely too hale and hearty, Scully thought sourly. "Fever's still up," she said, sighing. She looked around her tiredly. "Anything to eat?"

The young agent shook his head. "Don't worry," he said quickly as her face crumpled frustratedly. "You'll be having lunch, care of Baltimore Memorial in a couple of hours."

"You got the radio working?"

He smiled, lifting his one good arm. "Yep. Not bad for a one-hand wonder, huh?"

Scully eyes darkened... The Blind Wonder...

Brophy caught the look, seemed immediately to catch the reference. "Scully... What happened?"

She tried to meet his eyes. Failing that, she shrugged, wincing at the pain it engendered in her neck and head--the pain seemed to be getting worse instead of better. "I don't know what happened, David," she admitted finally.

"Don't know, or don't understand?"

This time, she did meet his eyes...

"Both."

He let it drop, for now... But they were going to have to explain the three dead men, the missing witness... Damn, they were going to be explaining for _days!_

"The, um, the chopper is headed our way right now," he said, watching her shoulders relax as he changed the subject. "They think they'll be able to get in and out before the worst of the storm's tail end hits."

Scully nodded, suddenly very tired again. Brophy sighed as he watched her rub absently at the bandages on her neck. "Get a little rest, Agent Scully," he advised. "They'll be here soon."

* * *

 _Baltimore Memorial Hospital_  
3:32 am  
the next morning

The smell was familiar... Scully opened her eyes in confusion, as she recognized the scent of antiseptics... A hospital?

What the hell was she doing in a hospital? She and Mulder were supposed to be going out to the safehouse...

She cast her gaze around, dropping on the smile of David Brophy--his arm and shoulder swathed in bandages... She also noticed the shadow of a guard outside the door.

"Hey. She lives," Brophy joked, repositioning his arm uncomfortably in its sling. "How you feeling?"

She thought about it a minute, before her hand snaked up to touch the bandages around her own neck. "Headache."

"More than that, I bet," he replied easily. "The ER doctor was amazed you hadn't suffered anything more than a concussion... Oh," he added embarrassedly, as Scully's hand went up to touch the IV in her other elbow curiously. "And I guess I should have cleaned that cut better. You've got one hell of an infection brewing up there."

Scully just stared at him, completely at a loss.

Apparently, Brophy took her consternation as worry, and hurried on with the rest of his information. "Mulder's going to be fine. He's in recovery now, and they've got him pumped up with drugs, but..." He trailed off at her shocked look.

"Scully?" he asked worriedly.

"What happened?" she finally managed to gasp out. "Mulder and I were planning to go out to the safehouse in Virginia..." She looked him in the eyes. "Did we have an accident?"

Brophy stood, nervous, and went out to find a nurse.

* * *

The CAT scan had been tense, the assessment interview, boring, and the doctor's visit, positively maddening.

"To tell you the truth, Miss Scully," the doctor had said reasonably. "I'm a little surprised that you're only missing _that_ much time. Given the severity of your concussion, I'd've expected a little more memory loss."

Scully had read her chart, stunned to find that she had sustained a severe concussion and a serious puncture wound, just off-center at the base of her skull. They'd discovered rust in the wound. It wasn't surprising that an infection had grown up so quickly in there.

And she still had no idea what had happened. Oh, she had what Brophy had been able to tell her, but he didn't know an awful lot himself... He said she'd sewn Mulder up after he'd been stabbed... She wanted to see him, wanted to know that he was all right.

The doctor had asked her to stay in bed, to make sure that she was healing, but she'd brushed him off, commandeering a wheelchair--her legs were still a little too unsteady--and rolling off, IV pole in hand.

* * *

_5:52 pm_

Mulder winced as his body tried to turn over, waking him from a deep, foggy sleep. He wondered if he could pinpoint a part of his body that _didn't_ hurt...

His left big toe, he decided after a moment. That seemed fine... But it was too small to give him much comfort.

"Mulder?"

His eyes came open, focusing predictably on his partner, safely seated in a wheelchair by his bed. "Hey."

"Hey," she replied, subdued.

"What happened?" She wasn't up for their usual post-op banter, and that worried him.

Scully smiled slightly. "You'll have to ask Brophy, I think." She continued, as he shot her a confused look. "I don't... I don't remember anything after we left the office... four days ago."

Mulder just stared at her for a moment, trying to puzzle through what she was saying. It was too much for his drug-clogged brain, and he sighed, closing his eyes again, as the deep breath brought more pain.

"Be careful," she warned. "You're lucky you're not on a respirator right now." Her voice became slightly frustrated. "From what the doctors tell me, your lung took one hell of a beating."

Mulder nodded, sifting through his own memories, picking out a few choice images... The two men that came at him out of the darkness... The sound of Scully's voice, shouting above the storm, telling him that he'd be okay...

And the light.

He opened his eyes again, staring at her hard, trying to make her remember what he didn't remember himself. "There was a light...?"

The words made Scully shudder, but for no reason that she could identify... Brophy had hinted that there was something... strange... about Sealy Ramirez's disappearance... Something that _she_ should remember...

She sighed herself. She didn't even remember Sealy Ramirez, much less what might have happened to her.

"Skinner's going to love this one," she said finally. "You were out cold, and I can't remember." She said the next gently. "And we have three dead mobsters and a missing federal witness."

Mulder watched as Scully _tried_ to recall what had happened. He wondered again at that light he'd seen in the dry, warm confines of the shelter... A light that he remembered Scully telling him was lightning...

* * *

Scully lay in her hospital room, revellling in the silence. Her mother had left ten minutes before, urging her to get some sleep. Scully wasn't sure she could take the advice.

Something flickered at the edge of her consciousness... A light... "We come back different, you know?"

Was that Sealy Ramirez's voice, she wondered. Had something happened? Something that Mulder would have used to promote some wild theory about aliens and Ramirez's miraculous sight?

Was it something Scully even _wanted_ to remember?

She sighed, turning fitfully as she finally fell into sleep...

...To dream of a light...  


* * *

_The End_


End file.
